


A Piece of You (To Keep You Close)

by stevesnosebump



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: A teaspoon of fluff, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War, Steve wearing Bucky’s clothes, little spoon steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26659381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevesnosebump/pseuds/stevesnosebump
Summary: Sometimes, Steve likes to wear Bucky’s shirts for comfort.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 12
Kudos: 99





	A Piece of You (To Keep You Close)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! I deleted my tumblr but here I am!  
> this was supposed to be a sweet fluff piece about steve wearing bucky’s clothes but it kinda became an angst piece because of course it did

**1934.**

“Is that my shirt?” Bucky asks with a grin as he walks into the kitchen, where Steve, with his back to Bucky, is cooking dinner. 

“Yeah. Is that an issue?” Steve bites back without even pausing his movements.

He’s carrying himself casually, like he doesn't care about Bucky noticing that he had snatched one of Bucky’s used shirts off the floor and put it on instead of throwing it in the hamper with the other dirty clothes, but he _does _care, a lot actually. He doesn’t want Bucky to think he’s weird or anything—a dumb fear to have, considering they’ve known one another for years and have been dating for a few months now. He had just woken up in a bit of a bad mood, one that had been brewing for a while and was only heightened when he realized that Bucky was already long gone, having left for work earlier than he normally does. So, when he saw one of Bucky’s dirty shirts on the floor—one of the comfortable shirts he likes to throw on after work or on the days he can lounge around the house—Steve had thought it might remedy the situation a bit, thought it might feel like being held in Bucky’s arms all day, surrounded by his intoxicating natural scent. And he was right.__

__“No,” Bucky immediately replies, wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist and bending down to rest his chin on Steve’s shoulder. “You look good. You should wear my clothes more often.”_ _

__Steve turns his face away, trying to hide the blush that’s already heating up his face. Bucky notices and swoops down to peck his cheek, squeezes him tightly before letting go and stepping back so Steve can continue cooking without hindrance. He’s hungry, after all._ _

__“Well? Are you gonna help or do you just want to stand here and stare at me all evening?”_ _

__“Is that a real option?”_ _

__“Help or starve.”  
———  
It eventually becomes a pretty regular occasion for Steve to wear Bucky’s shirts. Not just the ones that smell like him—sometimes he’ll grab one fresh from the wash and put it on, rolling his eyes at Bucky’s teasing remark of _”one of these days day I’ll have nothing left to wear!”__ _

__He really can’t really explain why he loves wearing Bucky’s shirts so much. Some days, when he’s lounging at home, he’ll put one on, reveling in how comfortable the soft material feels draped over his body. Or, on days when Bucky has to work overtime and Steve just really misses his boyfriend, he throws on a used shirt for the extra comfort of having something familiar, a tangible reminder that he’s loved._ _

__Bucky teases him about it sometimes, but he truly doesn’t mind it at all. He loves seeing Steve wearing his shirts—shirts that both of them know are way too big on Steve—and he loves even more that it brings Steve comfort on the days Bucky isn’t able to provide it for him._ _

__When Bucky notices that they’re running a bit behind on laundry, he starts making it a point to wear his dressier shirts when he heads out so Steve will always have one of his shirts if he wants it, even if it means Bucky has to walk around their apartment shirtless (Steve doesn’t mind that one bit)._ _

__Steve still wears his own shirts, of course—it’s not like he _burned_ them and vowed to only wear Bucky’s for the rest of his life—wearing Bucky’s shirts is a comfort thing for him, a piece of intimacy he likes to keep to himself. If he wants to lounge around his apartment in a shirt that hangs off him like an unflattering dress, no one else needs to know. _ _

__——  
**2011**  
Earlier that day, Steve awoke in a fake hospital room to a fake 1940s nurse and a fake basketball game playing on the radio. He discovers he _lived_ and he’s been thrust into a new century. Alone. Or, without the one person that really matters— _Bucky._ He’s taken to temporarily live in a cabin in the middle of the woods, secluded from the world. He’s never felt more lonely than this, not even when his ma died and Bucky was off to work and the radio was broken so he had to listen to the noises of the chillingly empty apartment as he _waited._ _ _

__It’s not that he can’t handle being alone—that doesn’t bother him much, he was an only child growing up and spent plenty of time on his own before he met Bucky. It was feeling so alienated and freakishly different that upset Steve. It would upset anyone—to wake up when you thought you had died, still reeling from the death of your lover, only to discover that you’re alive and in a completely different century. The people you knew are either long gone or withering away, and the people you meet can sense that you’re _different._ Of course he feels awful._ _

__But he has no one he can turn to, so he keeps it to himself. Bottled up in this little cabin in the middle of nowhere._ _

__He’s given a few of the items he’d owned back in the 40s—mainly the clothes that he’d purchased or been given right after being injected with the serum._ _

__As he digs around in his belongings, searching for something comfortable he can change into after his shower so he can spend the day cozily lounging, a glimpse of a familiar shirt catches his eye._ _

__He pauses for a moment, convinced he’s imagining it...but, no, he realizes as he grabs the shirt and holds it up to the light—he isn’t going crazy. This is Bucky’s shirt—one of his favorites to steal from him to wear around the house._ _

__He knows it’s stupid, but he takes a moment to lift the shirt to his nose, hoping that maybe this shirt would miraculously still smell like him and he’d finally be able to have a piece of his Bucky back again._ _

__He’s disappointed to find that no, this old ass shirt does _not_ somehow still smell like Bucky. How could it? It smells like the forgotten bottom of a dusty drawer, which is probably exactly where it had sat for at least a few months before it was dug out and stored with a few of Steve’s other belongings. _ _

__He forcibly swallows his disappointment like he had to swallow the grief of Bucky’s death (if only he had reached out a little more...) and places the shirt aside so he can throw it on after his shower. It won’t be the same as wearing a shirt that actually smells like Bucky and helps him feel connected to his lover, but...it’s something. He knows the shirt belongs to Bucky, and he remembers stealing it from the laundry, or the closet, or sometimes off the floor the morning after an intimate night._ _

__The shirt doesn’t fit. He should’ve known it wouldn’t, he hadn’t even tried wearing Bucky’s shirts since getting injected with the serum because he knew he had grown a _lot._ He was prepared for the shirt to not drape his body like a dress the way Bucky’s shirts used to fit him, but he wasn’t prepared for it to not fit _at all._ He’s so frustrated by the whole ordeal he could cry—he had thought he’d finally have a piece of Bucky again, something to hold on the days he’s overwhelmed by grief, but it was ripped from him just like Bucky was. It hurts him all over again. _ _

__Tears stinging his eyes, he throws the shirt back down and tugs on one of his own instead._ _

__——  
A few weeks pass and the incident is, for the most part, forgotten. Steve has bigger things to worry about than an old shirt that doesn’t fit—like adjusting to this new century (he’s sick of all the judgmental stares he receives anytime he does _anything,_ really). _ _

__He’s in a store browsing for some new clothes that might help him fit in a bit better when a shirt catches his eye._ _

__The shirt is a button down, ~~ugly~~ patterned with grey plaid. It reminds him of something Bucky would wear to work down at the docks, coming back home exhausted and sore and quickly ridding himself of the shirt as he pouted and requested a massage from Steve. _ _

__It’s not the type of shirt Steve would’ve typically taken from Bucky, since he usually wore Bucky’s t-shirts when he needed comfort and Bucky wasn’t around to give it, or when he wanted a comfortable shirt to wear around their apartment, but the shirt has such a striking similarity to the button downs Bucky wore for work that Steve feels compelled to buy it. It almost seems like the universe’s way of apologizing for the fact that Bucky’s real shirt hadn’t fit._ _

__So he buys it. It doesn’t help his case in trying _not_ to look like an old man in a young man’s body, but who cares? He deserves to have something for himself, a little piece of home he can carry with him in this unfamiliar world. _ _

__And if he buys it a few sizes too big to replicate how the shirt would have fit him before the serum...well, that’s no one else’s business, either._ _

__For the first time since he awoke from the ice, Steve doesn’t feel so lonely._ _

__——  
After years of relentless searching, Steve _finally_ gets to reunite with Bucky again. It takes them a while to figure things out again, and Bucky’s guard is always up, but they’re patient with one another. They’re working things out, slowly but surely. _ _

__They’re lying in their shared bed in their apartment now, with Bucky’s arms wrapped lovingly around Steve’s torso (a position they settled into after Bucky rejected Steve’s attempt at being the big spoon with a smirk as he told him, “if there’s one thing I remember, it’s that you liked being my little spoon, sunshine.”)._ _

__“Buck,” Steve whispers, not wanting to speak any louder out of fear of somehow breaking the peaceful atmosphere._ _

__“Hmm?”_ _

__“I missed you,” he whispers, trying to hold his tears in. “A lot. Everyday.”_ _

__“Sweetheart—“_ _

__“I thought about you everyday,” his voice cracks a bit at the end, so he pauses to swallow and recollect himself. “And I saw you in every crowd, I swear I did.”_ _

__Bucky presses a gentle kiss to his shoulder before speaking. “I missed you too, you know? Even without my memories, it’s like my brain something was missing. Some _one._ Someone very, very important to me.” Now he’s tearing up, too. “I’m just glad we’re together again.” _ _

__Steve takes a deep, shaky breath, before responding with a shaky, “Me too.”_ _

__He turns his face so they can kiss, exchanging quiet “I love yous” between kisses._ _

__They return to quietly cuddling one another, reveling in the sound of the other’s steady breathing and the warmth of the other’s body._ _

__Steve breaks the silence with a quiet—but much more confident than before—call of Bucky’s name._ _

__“Yes?”_ _

__“A few years back I—I bought a really, really ugly shirt.”_ _

__Bucky chuckles, unsure of where this is going._ _

__“And?”_ _

__“And—God, Buck, it’s so ugly, but it reminded me of you—“_ _

__“I’m sorry?”_ _

__“No!” Steve laughs out, “No, it just reminded me of something you’d wear to work. So I bought it, and I bought it a few sizes too big because I missed wearing your shirts, and....” Steve trails off, but Bucky knows exactly what he wants to say._ _

__“It’s just not the same.”_ _

__“No,” Steve sadly affirms, “it’s not.”_ _

__“Doll, you know you can raid my closet at anytime. I—I’ve gotten a bit...bigger, I guess....so they’d probably fit you. Not the way they did before, but...they’d fit.”_ _

__Steve sighs, feeling tension he hadn’t even realized was there leave his body._ _

__“Thank you.”_ _

__Bucky chuckles before pressing a kiss to Steve’s cheek. “No need to thank me. This is thanks enough,” He replies, pulling Steve in closer._ _

__Steve silently takes a moment to thank the universe for helping them find one another again._ _

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed! love u! it was nice to write something, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever feel comfortable posting another fic but here I am!! <3
> 
> oh, what’s this? why, it’s just [some handy dandy resources to donate to black trans groups!](https://vivalatinamerica.tumblr.com/post/621013195214241792/donate-to-black-trans-groups%E2%80%9D) please consider donating if you can, but if you can’t, simply sharing the link or reblogging the post on your tumblr is enough!


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